Born in Japan, Yasutaro Yamaga came to British Columbia in 1908. After working as a labourer, he purchased ten acres of land near Haney, B.C. Yamaga led the Japanese Farmer's Union in the Fraser Valley. After World War II, he moved to Ontario, where at Beamsville he established the first home for Japanese Canadian senior citizens (Nipponia Home) in Canada.

A Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia since 1976, Graeme Wynn was born in 1946 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He studied a BA at Sheffield University and his MA and Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. His area of expertise is in Historical Geography. He served as Associate Dean of Arts at UBC between 1991 and 1996. At the end of his term as Associate Dean of Arts, Wynn became head of the Department of Geography. For eight years before his retirement in 2016, he was editor of BC Studies.

Walker Gill Wylie, who also went by Walter Gill Wylie, was an abdominal surgeon and gynecologist from the United States of America. He was born in Chester Couth Carolina in 1848 and enlisted in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War as a lieutenant at the age of 16. He graduated from the University of South Carolina in 1868 with what would be equivalent to a civil engineering degree today. In 1871 he received an MD from Bellvue Medical College in New York City. He married Henrietta Frances Damon in Northampton Massachusetts on June 13, 1877, with whom he had five children.

He had a distinguished medical career which included forming and becoming a member of the State Charities Aid Association. As a member of the association, he was given the opportunity to observe medical and nursing practices in England, including those implemented by Florence Nightingale with whom he had correspondence. After visiting England, he helped establish the Training School for Nurses connected to Bellvue Hospital, the first of its kind in the United States. In 1876, he wrote Hospitals, their organizations and construction which set the standards for hospital management in the United States for several years.

He also continued to work in the field of engineering, as is evident by his founding of the Duke Power Company with his business partner James Buchanan Duke. He was also involved in the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in South Carolina in 1896. He later also became president of the Catabawa Power Company, which was organized under the laws of South Carolina.

He died on March 13, 1923 in New York City.

(Taken from an obituary notice in the American Medical Association Journal 80 (12) 856, 1923. and from The University South Caroliniana Society Newsletter, Spring 2008 Supplement, http://library.sc.edu/file/703)

Rudolph “Rudy” Wurlitzer was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1937. He is married to photographer Lynn Davis, and they split their time between homes in New York state and Nova Scotia, Canada. Wurlitzer is an author and screenwriter. His first novel, Nog, was published in 1968 and his most recent, The Drop Edge of Yonder, in 2008. His first screenplay, Glen and Randa, was produced in 1969, and his most recent, Little Buddha, in 1993.

Harold Wright was born in Winnipeg. He received an M.A. in geology from the University of B.C. (1933) and an M.Sc from the University of Utah (1936). He returned to Vancouver, where he established Wright Engineering Limited, a mining and metallurgy firm. Wright was also very active in athletics. He represented Canada in the 1932 Olympic Games and later, as a businessman, played a major role in Canada's successful bid for the 1976 Summer Games. Wright became president of the Canadian Olympic Association. He also served as director of the Commonwealth Games Association of Canada and the British Columbia Sports Federation.

Gladys Wright (née Jack) was a member of the UBC Arts Class of 1923 and later became a teacher.

Alice Lillian Wright was born August 22, 1894, in Charlottetown, P.E.I., and died in March 15, 2000 (age 105) in Vancouver, British Columbia. After graduation from the Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing in 1918, she first worked as a pediatric head nurse and pediatrics instructor at Vancouver General Hospital, then in hospitals in California and New York. She received her Bachelor of Science from Teacher's College, Columbia University, New York, in 1941. She also took a post-graduate course in pediatrics at New York Nursery and Children's Hospital, as well as a special course at the Kenny Institute, University of Minnesota.

She was Registrar and Executive Secretary of the Registered Nurses Association of B.C. from 1943 to her retirement in 1960. During that portion of her career, she initiated trail-blazing efforts to establish collective bargaining for nurses in B.C. and in Canada. She was named an Honorary Life Member of the Registered Nurses Association of B.C. in 1952 as a tribute to her pioneering work in labour relations for B.C. nurses and her efforts to improve standards of nursing education in the province. She was named an Honorary Life Member of the Canadian Nurses Association in 1962 for her pioneering labour relations work and for her many professional contributions nationally and internationally through the International Council of Nurses.

She started collecting antique infant feeding devices during the 1930s and amassed a valuable collection of fifteen items, which she donated to UBC Woodward Library Special Collections in 1966. This collection has been added to by other serious collectors and now contains more than forty items.

In 1913, at the age of 24, WOU Young Wing left his home in 中山 Zhongshan, 廣東 Guangdong, China and boarded the Awa Maru in Hong Kong. After a month-long journey, he arrived in Canada at Victoria, B.C.

By 1923, he was living in Lethbridge, Alberta, working as a market gardener and residing on the farm of J. Brodie located about 5 miles SE of Lethbridge. He had a wife and child in China that he would travel back to visit.

By 1926, Wing was residing in New Westminster, B.C. where he owned and operated a successful grocery business in the downtown core for over 20 years. Subsequently, he moved to the Sapperton area of the city, where he operated another grocery store that he passed on to his family when he retired.

Some 60 years after he first set foot in Canada, Wing died on August 26, 1974 in Vancouver, B.C., leaving behind a loving family, the lasting legacy of a young man who left his birthplace to pursue his dreams in a new land.

WOU Chow Sha was born in China around 1892 in the [新會 Sunwui / Xinhui] county of [廣東 Guangdong] province.

He arrived in Victoria, BC, in 1913, and paid the $500 head tax. By 1924, he was living in Vancouver at 359 East Pender Street and working as a labourer. He had no family either in Canada or China. However, he made several trips back to China in the 1920s and 1930s.